Anna Winsdor was born into the lap of luxury, a privileged member of the elite of her prosperous town. Her family has it's fingers in many pots at once, having holdings in everything from local trade skills to exports. There are some murmurings among the servants her parents occasionally dabble in darker things, but Anna pays this little mind. Servants will say the darnedest things sometimes.
Anna attended the best schools, and excelled, as many are wont to do when squirreled away at a private girl's school with little else to do than study and gossip. She hoped one day to take over as head matriarch, ruling their families sizable merchant empire along the side of her somewhat dim and obnoxious brother.
All this, it seems, changed when she was spirited away by a mysterious man, promising to teach her the secrets of the universe (only after getting his horrid little servant to beat her, however. The rudeness...!). It has been promised that she will gain exclusive knowledge, but the world she knew no longer exists for her...
Anna stares in the mirror and delicately touches her bruised and bloodied lip with a slight wince. Never had she been touched like that. No one had even dared glare at her, besides her oaf of a brother, and the most he ever did was pull her pigtails as a child. She can feel the black and blue markings all over her body, and the chill air through the many gashes in her once fine dress.
Dabbing gently, she wipes the crusted blood away, and thinks with bitterness over the past few days... Spirited away to some strange place... Left starving and alone, only her dignity to keep her warm in a harsh little room... Ushered in to talk to a man who only seemed to delight in taunting her... Beaten by his little crude servant... She bites back tears as she remembers the boots, the fists.
She is a Winsdor. Winsdors don't cry like sniveling brats when they don't like their porridge. Winsdors do not falter.
She looks at her reflection, and seeks out some dignity, some grace, even in her bloodied and bruised state. The man offered secrets, secrets offered to no one. She cannot go back to who she was... The threat about her family was enough to make that readily apparent. She has nowhere to run, and not even a coin to bribe a caravan for a ride. But she can learn here, learn secret things, powerful things. Before her, she seems to see a great chasm, and a ledge, just in reach.
Jump, and fall to her death, or catch the ledge, and crawl back up.
She is a Winsdor. She will rise.